In 2020, the Tourism Bureau promoted the Executive Yuan's "Tourism 2020—Taiwan Sustain-able Tourism Development Plan." This plan’s goals include creating a tourism industry that is innovative, sustainable, localized, positive, diverse, and creates added value while ensuring safety and social responsibility. The Development Plan advanced 21 measures through a five-pronged strategy of "developing diversified markets, promoting domestic travel, guiding industrial transi-tion, developing smart tourism, and expanding experiential tourism" to build Taiwan's tourism brand and progressively turn Taiwan into a "friendly, smart, and experiential" high-profile tourist destination in Asia. The Bureau also responded to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the global tourism industry through initiatives coordinated with the Special Act on COVID-19 Pre-vention, Relief and Restoration promulgated by the Executive Yuan on February 25, 2020. This included promotion of epidemic prevention, relief, and revitalization measures through a steady and orderly pre-deployment approach. It also involved guidance in industry transformation, sta-bilization of the domestic tourism market, preparation for the industry's post-COVID recovery, and promotion of Taiwan as a safe destination with a successful record in COVID-19 prevention.
Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19, Stabilizing the Tourism Industry
- Tourism industry relief plan
Financial support was provided to travel agencies arranging inbound visits. Members of the travel industry received subsidies and reimbursement related to issues such as early departure of main-land tour groups, cancellation of amusement park group tickets, hotel industry operations, and employee salaries. Financial assistance was also provided for retraining and various cash flow needs, as well as subsidies for hotel COVID-19 prevention measures. Such support amounted to NT$14.02 billion as of December 31, 2020. - Tourism Recovery and Revitalization Plan
Stimulus measures were launched to boost domestic travel, including group travel discounts, hotel discounts for independent travelers, amusement park admission discounts, Taiwan Tour Bus dis-counts for independent travel, and subsidies for local governments to arrange unique local events. As of December 31, 2020, a total of NT$7.61 billion had been allocated for such measures. The "Safe Travels" program, implemented from July to October of 2020, incentivized 18.46 million trips, boosting domestic tourism demand and generating tourism benefits of NT$65.4 billion. It also contributed to a 4.26% rise in the economic growth rate in the third quarter of 2020, and a 3.12% rise in the annual economic growth rate.
Tourism relief: From 1.0 to 3.0
Maintaining Taiwan's Popularity in International Markets
- Online promotionsThe Tourism Bureau participated in, co-organized, and hosted more than 500 online promotion and marketing activities and over 20 online travel agency (OTA) cooperation projects.
- Strengthening cooperation with tourism partnersThe Bureau held frequent video conferences with global industry players and official units for exchanges on cooperation and post-pandemic market recovery.
Upgrading Domestic Tourism
- Promoting the 2020 Year of Mountain Range TourismIn addition to selecting 35 classic mountain tour routes, the Tourism Bureau and national scenic area administrations held 66 events promoting mountain tourism highlights. These events attract-ed about 570,000 participants and generated NT$2.4 billion in value.
- Promoting small town travelBuilding on the success of the 2019 Taiwan Small Town Ramble Year boom, the Tourism Bu-reau selected 30 classic/mountain towns to promote in conjunction with the Year of Mountain Tourism theme in 2020. Local governments received subsidies for town marketing activities. The marketing activities attracted about 1.99 million visitors, and produced NT$200 million in value.
- Promoting the Biannual Taiwan Tourism CalendarIn 2020, the Taiwan Lantern Festival and 100 other international and national tourism activities on the Taiwan Tourism Calendar supported a positive environment for cross-regional, overnight, and weekday travel. These events attracted 46.68 million visitors and generated tourism benefits of approximately NT$36.5 billion.
- Integrating preferential travel packagesThe Tourism Bureau provided guidance to county and city governments to help them launch at least 16 “International Classic Tours” and 74 “In-depth Specialty Tours” using the Taiwan Pass.
- Facilitating travel on the Taiwan Tourist ShuttleThe Tourism Bureau assisted 21 county and city governments and nine national scenic area ad-ministrations in the development of 60 Taiwan Tourist Shuttle routes (including 47 accessible routes). These routes attracted nearly 3.72 million riders and provided independent domestic and foreign travelers direct and friendly round-trip shuttle services between major public transporta-tion hubs and well-known scenic attractions.
- Supporting expansion and transformation of the Taiwan Tour Bus serviceTwenty-one travel agencies offered 86 package tours as of the end of 2020.
- Forming regional tourism industry alliancesAs of the end of 2020, seven scenic area administrations had established platforms for the estab-lishment of regional tourism industry alliances and arranged 15 consensus-building or promotion events.
- 3D digital tourism experiencesThe Tourism Bureau promoted mobile augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) digital value-added services. Scenic area administrations established experience zones featuring 360-degree VR imag-es. Three videos were produced on the annual tourism themes of "Small Town Ramble," "Moun-tains," and "Cycling" to give people worldwide a chance to virtually experience travel in Taiwan.
Following OhBear to Yinghan Peak on a hiking activity
2020 Taiwan Beautiful Mountain Ridge Photography Exhibition
